


beauty and the jiggly bush

by leftishark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack Treated Seriously, Happy Ending, M/M, brief bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28787553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftishark/pseuds/leftishark
Summary: Shiro may not be shaped as he once was, as man or bush, but he still springs back with a satisfying wobble when the boy gives Shiro a firm pat.“You’re jiggly,” he says, solemn expression breaking into a smile.Shiro wishes he could smile back.Shiro gets turned into a shrub in his now decrepit castle. Keith is the landscaper determined to restore the grounds.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 73
Kudos: 144





	beauty and the jiggly bush

**Author's Note:**

> me in September: fun silly au!  
> me in December: how to properly trim an overgrown shrub what time of year to prune how long does it take to—
> 
> based on [this video](https://twitter.com/jamestodman/status/1301423698113695745?s=20) and [this tweet](https://twitter.com/leftishark_/status/1302348329456549888?s=20).
> 
> thank you so much for your patience and enthusiasm, everyone, and a million thanks to ree for the [incredible art](https://twitter.com/anuveon/status/1331583416047906817?s=20)! i hope you like it! <3

Rumors keep the villagers away from the old Shirogane castle.

It doesn't take a genius to put together the pieces: how the Shiroganes’ son refused to fight in the war overseas and refused to send the villagers in his stead, how the witch-queen raged at the defiance of her champion boxer. How a storm blew through, wrong for early summer, and violet lightning crackled overhead. 

The family disappeared that night, the staff along with them. Some say they were killed, bodies vaporized by magic; others say they abandoned the premises, leaving their own magical traps behind. But they neither died nor fled.

The lord is a willow weeping over the creek; the lady, a gnarled oak watching over the juniberry field that holds cousin Allura. The footman Lance is a hydrangea, large blue heads blooming every summer, while the cook Hunk has been absorbed into the olive grove; Coran, the butler, resides in the spiraling maze of rhododendron hedges and Pidge, the stable hand, has turned to ivy creeping up the castle walls.

And the son, the champion, Shiro—Shiro is a bush now. He is a humble topiary perched on the landing of the wide stairs that sweep up the grounds to the castle. 

Years pass, then decades. Weeds sprout from the unkept soil; stone crumbles; moss overtakes wood. Shiro’s branches grow scraggly and misshapen as he watches his home fall into disrepair, never to die, never to truly live, only to be subsumed by time.

Until a boy from the village, now a town, scrambles over the rusty gate. He has the look of someone who’s smaller than he should be, clothes faded and torn. As he drops down to the other side and scurries behind a willow, the crowd chasing him—bullies, Shiro presumes—sputters to a halt.

“Let him go,“ one of his pursuers commands. “That place is haunted.”

“Hey,” another calls, taunting, "maybe it’ll take care of him!” 

“See ya never, Keith!” 

The boy—Keith—stays hidden until the crowd turns and leaves. Shiro can barely see him from his perch, but eventually the boy emerges and looks around, small among the trees. He trails his fingers through their hanging branches before he wanders farther in, crossing the stone bridge with curious footsteps. The path leads to the stairs, and the boy climbs them all the way to the top, never stopping until he reaches the landing where Shiro can take him in fully: dark hair hanging roughly at his shoulders, knobby limbs, a determined set to his eyes. After a moment’s pause for breath, he turns his keen gaze to Shiro where he’s sitting off to the side, an overgrown topiary no longer round with random limbs sprouting every which way and awkwardly leggy at the base. Shiro may not be shaped as he once was, as man or bush, but he still springs back with a satisfying wobble when the boy gives Shiro a firm pat. 

“You’re jiggly,” he says, solemn expression breaking into a smile.

Shiro wishes he could smile back. 

“Talking to a bush,” the boy says, shaking his head. He glances toward the crowd making their way back to town. “What would they say if they knew.” 

Shiro can’t say anything, can hardly twitch his leaves in the slight breeze, but he wills a message of welcome toward the boy. He thinks it reaches him, as Keith smiles and pats him again.

More assured in his presence, the boy wanders off down the sloping juniberry field and spends the day exploring the rest of the grounds. He sticks his nose in every hue of flower and races through the rhododendron hedges, laughing at his own daring when the overgrown foliage tickles his arms. He climbs up the largest olive tree, hanging off Hunk’s sprawling branches to swing back and forth, and when he tires he returns to the landing, flushed and grinning and looking far more alive than he did when he arrived.

“How beautiful,” he murmurs, looking over the wild tangled land. He glances at Shiro and sighs, going over to ruffle his thickly tangled branches once more. "How lonely. Nobody to care for you.” 

Shiro didn't realize he was lonely until he had company.

The boy lays down on the sun-warmed stone by Shiro’s base and closes his eyes. Shiro watches over his rest as the shadows lengthen, pleased to have given him an obviously much-needed refuge. It’s a surprise to feel this satisfaction, to feel anything at all beyond the monotony of existence. He basks in it as the sun closes in on the horizon, until gathering clouds and growing wind rouse the boy from his nap.

The last time Shiro felt this distinct prickle of electricity in the air, violet lightning followed.

 _Go home,_ Shiro calls out.

“What home?” the boy huffs, rubbing sleep from his eyes. But he stands and stretches and retraces his path down the stairs, across the bridge, over the gate, and out of Shiro’s realm. 

Shiro wonders if the boy will return and buries his disappointment when he doesn’t the next day, or the day after, or for many days after that. His presence was a gift temporarily bestowed, and Shiro tries instead to remember the boy’s fierce joy as he sinks back into his roots and xylem and dense, yellowing foliage, overgrown and underloved.

By the time the boy returns he is a young man, lean where he was gangly and features matured to something strikingly handsome. He climbs over the fence with confidence rather than desperation, and as he strides down the path and up the stairs with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, Shiro’s leaves flutter in anticipation.

Keith. He’s grown into himself.

He’s brought a small, determined smile and modest set of landscaping tools that he pulls out of his bag once he reaches the landing: shears and shovels, a tarp he lays down around Shiro's base, a pair of fingerless gloves he pulls onto slender hands. And then he sets to work.

Shiro’s never been pruned before, but Keith must know what he’s doing, he thinks, as the dense old branches that have cluttered up his body thin out and Shiro feels like he can breathe again. Sunlight doesn’t get caught on his outer leaves but shines dappled and warm further in, bringing with it a winter breeze wafting fresh and cool over his inner branches. Shiro feels like he’s glowing. 

Keith seems to sense his contentment as he smiles, satisfied, and brushes over Shiro’s leaves. 

“That’s good for now,” he declares with a nod as he packs his bag. “Don’t want to overdo it; takes time to revive a good bush. I’ll get more next year when you’ve had a chance to grow back.” 

Shiro is prepared to wait a year for him—it’s nothing next to all the time he’s spent alone—but Keith is back the very next day. He walks up to the landing again to survey the grounds, then goes down to the dormant juniberry field and piles up last year’s dead weeds. The next day, he pulls out the new ones that have sprouted in the rain-damp soil. And the day after, he’s there to clear out fallen willow leaves by the bridge, letting the stream run free. 

It goes on like that: Keith comes to the castle more days than not to work on the grounds, slowly nursing them back to health. He sings sometimes while he works, louder and freer as he becomes comfortable; other times, he chats quietly with the plants, sharing little secrets. In bits and pieces, he reveals a childhood of profound loneliness until he stumbled upon Shiro’s castle and a deep-rooted drive to learn the care of plants thereafter. After a few days’ absence, he explains that he has other work to pay his rent and fill his kitchen, as if he needs to excuse himself to a bunch of shrubs for not coming more often when it’s a miracle he’s there at all. 

Every day that he comes, he walks up to Shiro first even though it’s out of his way, pausing at the top of the steps to take in the view. He always comes up once more to survey his work and fluff up Shiro’s branches before he leaves for the day. 

“Don’t tell the others,” Keith confesses to Shiro one particularly fine afternoon, “but you’re my favorite.” 

Shiro feels himself blush greener. 

Seasons change and change again, but Keith’s presence is a constant. On a drizzly spring morning unfit for gardening, Keith brings a novel and reads it aloud to Shiro; in the heat of summer, he sprawls across the cool shaded stone for a nap; when the leaves turn, he fills a sketchbook with shades of gold.

Three years pass in Keith’s care, and the gardens are transformed. Keith patiently tames the rowdy rhododendrons into a coherent maze, and the olive trees bear more fruit than they ever have before. And as Shiro’s old boughs are replaced with new growth, Keith shapes him into a round ball, jaunty and proud. His young branches are more supple than before, jiggling happily when Keith pats him all around to shake the clipped twigs free. 

Even better than the feeling of being well trimmed is the smile he brings to Keith’s face.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183027291@N04/50840629387/in/dateposted-public/)

It’s wonderful time until one day, Keith slows as he approaches the fence and stops instead of climbing right over. He crosses his arms as he glares at a new sign affixed to the weathered metal. He’s still frowning when he makes it up to the landing, turning and slumping onto the top step to stare out over the grounds.

“A golf course,” he mutters. “The prince wants to turn this place into a golf course.” 

A chill runs through Shiro, setting his twigs twitching. Perhaps it was foolish to think that this condition, only half-alive as he is, would last forever. The magic won’t let him and the others die as plants on their own, but if they’re cut down… Shiro shudders to think what might happen.

“What does Lotor need a golf course for anyway?” Keith says louder, more indignant. “Doesn’t he already have one at his own castle, and his other castle, and on the islands he stole? How could he—" He breaks off, jumping to his feet. “Look at this!” 

The land was always beautiful, even when unkempt, but Keith’s care has turned the grounds vibrant and lush. The trees stand taller; the flowers bloom brighter. Everything alive is happier. 

“One month,” Keith says, almost growling. “One month until they break ground.” 

He works more diligently than ever, tidying up the crawling ivy, scrubbing stains from the stone until it gleams. He lingers longer when he’s done for the day, soaking in the sunlight with Shiro by his side. Shiro wants nothing more than to take his hand, to comfort him, to brush over Keith’s skin the way he smooths over Shiro’s leaves.

The day before construction begins, Keith arrives with a bulkier bag than usual, looking grim but determined. 

“One more trim,” he tells Shiro with a small smile, and he snips away stray growth until Shiro is as round and smooth as a bush can be, except for one sprig he leaves on top. 

Keith doesn’t work after that; he just wanders through the grounds he’s dedicated his time and skills and attention to, trailing his hands through the willow branches and smelling the hydrangeas. When he makes his way back up to the landing, he pulls some bread and olives out of his bag and settles in comfortably, and together he and Shiro watch the sun set over the oaks and willows and the town beyond, reds and golds painting the sky. 

But Keith doesn’t leave as he should, even as the colors fade from the darkening sky; he lays down a pile of blankets from his bag and tucks himself into them.

Dusky purple clouds gather on the horizon. Shiro watches with dismay as they grow quickly into a storm, lightning striking in the distance. His leaves tremble, from the wind or from fear he cannot tell. But it’s not his life he fears for.

 _Go home,_ he whispers on the wind. 

“This is home,” Keith says from his makeshift bed, like he can hear him. 

_Save yourself,_ Shiro pleads.

“You saved me once,” Keith argues. “Let me stay with you.” 

_GO!_ Shiro cries, but Keith curls up tighter. Somehow, he sleeps.

For the first time in a long, long, time, Shiro sleeps, too.

***

Keith wakes to pale blue light.

He’s outdoors, he remembers, not in his bed, the stone hard beneath him and his hair tangled from the gusty storm. His dream was something wild, too—witches and lightning and a battle in the stars fighting to save someone he couldn’t see but knew he couldn’t live without. 

Keith sits up, then stills. There’s a man beside him in front of the topiary, twigs and leaves in his hair. He’s well-built and one-armed—and naked except for Keith’s blanket drawn over his lap. 

“Keith,” he says as Keith blushes pink. “Thank you.”

“You know my name?”

“I know you,” he says, looking at Keith with affectionate familiarity.

“Who are you, then?” says Keith, wondering.

“Your favorite.” The man’s smile is shy at first, then bright when Keith glances to the now smooth-topped topiary and back with awestruck understanding. 

“I am Shiro,” he clarifies. “And this is my land.” He reaches for Keith, pausing halfway. “It’s yours, too, if you’ll have it.” 

_If you’ll have me,_ Shiro offers in his eyes. 

Keith looks around at the land he’s come to think of as his home. It looks much the same as he left it yesterday, lovely in full bloom, but now there are figures moving among the foliage, sounds beyond the chirping of birds at dawn. A squawk rings out from the direction of the hydrangeas, followed by teasing laughter and the chirping of a dozen flustered birds. At the gate, a gray-haired couple wrapped in more of Keith’s blankets is blocking a construction truck. 

Keith is no longer the only one who will care for this place, he knows. But he's part of it now, and it is part of him. How could he be anywhere but here?

He takes Shiro’s hand in one of his own. With the other, he reaches up to brush the leaves from Shiro’s hair. 

“I will,” Keith says, and they put down roots together.

**Author's Note:**

> they turn part of the grounds into a kind of public park and keep a small private section where they live happily ever after :)  
> [managing large shrubs: learn how to trim an overgrown shrub](https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/shgen/trimming-overgrown-shrub.htm)
> 
> thank you for reading! i love hearing from people if you feel like it (no worries if you don't!) <3 
> 
> [twitter](twitter.com/leftishark_)


End file.
